Self Portrait with Yellow Lilies

Mediums: oil, canvas.
Location: State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Russia).

The artist painted her portrait in the studio – her works of the period of impressionism hang on the wall. The image is made by bold movements of the brush, and the element of colour triumphs over the subject medium. The background painting, especially the foreground, is no less expressive – the colours of the bouquet leave pink and blue reflections on the author’s white blouse, contrasting with the blazing lilies. In the painting, critics see a creative dialogue with Van Gogh, and delicate plants in the deliberately roughly depicted hand of the heroine are a metaphor for her mighty temperament. Goncharova was primarily a creator, an artist of a new formation, and the status of the first “Amazon of the avant-garde” was rightfully given to her.